Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins has accused Derbyshire County Council of leaving unspent millions of pounds for school spaces for children with special needs.
Mr Perkins said during a House of Commons debate that the council had received £17.5m since 2019, of which it had only spent £1.5m.
However, Cllr Alex Dale, Derbyshire CC’s cabinet member for Education, described the statement as ‘completely inaccurate’.
‘It’s completely inaccurate to imply that we have held £17.5m of SEND capital funding since 2019. The vast majority of it (£13m) was not announced by the Government until March 2022.’
He added: ‘We are working very hard towards allocating this important funding, but it’s money that can only be spent once so it needs to be based on a proper, high-quality sufficiency study to ensure we provide the right sort of places in the right areas to meet the demands we are facing.’
